“Ahem.”
Startled by the sudden presence nearby, Nabin straightened up from his crouched position and instinctively took a step back. Reflected in his wide eyes was a man whose broad, muscular upper body looked easily three times larger than Nabin’s own.
The man’s closely cropped hair stood out, making him easily recognizable as one of Kim Minsu’s subordinates—specifically, Mangchi, one of the most trusted among them, almost like Kim Minsu’s right-hand man.
Sensing Nabin’s fear, Mangchi tried to soften his fierce expression by drooping his eyebrows, but the result was the opposite. The grim muscles thickly plastered across his face contorted, making him look even more menacing.
Nabin’s pale face turned ghostly white, the blood draining from it entirely. As tears welled up in his large eyes, Mangchi panicked and quickly pulled a business card from his pocket, holding it out to Nabin.
“Go here and give it a shot. The job you’re doing now ain’t ever gonna cover your debt.”
Mangchi hadn’t been waiting to harass Nabin. Every time he saw the boy—his life spiraling into ruin after crossing paths with Kim Minsu—a harsh lump stuck in his throat, like a thorn he couldn’t swallow.
He was still just a kid. Others had buried themselves in gambling, women, and booze before foolishly turning to Black Finance, but Nabin was different. He was paying off a debt he didn’t even owe, one taken out by a stepfather he shared no blood with.
The more Mangchi watched him, the more pitiful the boy became, and the heavier the pity weighed on him. But there was nothing Mangchi could do to help. He’d even tried suggesting to Kim Minsu that they track down Lee Su-chang—the man who had vanished without a trace, presumed dead or hiding—but one cold glare from Kim Minsu had made him swallow his words immediately.
After much deliberation, this was the best he could come up with. Shrinking his massive shoulders, Mangchi forcefully pressed the card into Nabin’s hand when the boy showed no intention of accepting it.
The business card read: ‘Miner Kim Mansik’—just a name and a phone number.
Realizing Mangchi truly meant him no harm, Nabin lowered his head and carefully examined the card.
He had heard of miners before. They were people who ventured into abandoned dungeons where monsters no longer appeared to extract mana stones. Even though they were called “abandoned,” monsters still occasionally showed up, making it a dangerous job.
On top of that, the air density inside dungeons was different from the outside world. For ordinary people without Esper or Guide traits, it was like inhaling toxic gas—damaging to one’s health.
Those who worked as miners were often desperate enough for money to risk their health… just like Nabin.
“Well, I can’t say this job is any good, but… Kid, you’ve noticed it too, right? Our boss’s got his eye on you. Better to ruin your body than to let that happen.”
Despite his gruff way of speaking, worry seeped into Mangchi’s words. Nabin clutched the card tightly. Mangchi looked far scarier than Kim Minsu—but he felt less frightening. At least the way he looked at Nabin still held a sliver of human decency.
“Keep this between us. If the boss finds out I told you, I’m as good as dead.”
The man—larger even than Kim Minsu—trembled at the end of his sentence, genuinely afraid. Nabin could understand how he felt and gave a small nod in response, murmuring his thanks.
“…Yes. Th-thank you, sir.”
Kim Minsu was merciless even to his own men. Nabin had seen it himself—people who came to pay their interest dragged away bloodied and beaten. They were the same thugs who had once glared at Nabin with fierce eyes at the office, now reduced to pathetic wrecks.
Nabin bowed deeply at the waist to express his gratitude once more to Mangchi. The rare kindness from an adult, unfamiliar as it was, warmed him enough to bring a smile to his lips—if only for a moment. Maybe, just maybe, he could pay off his debt by next year with this job.
***
“Nabin! Let’s eat, then get back to it!”
“Yes, sir!”
Nabin had survived five full years.
Though he’d always been just barely scraping by, he never once missed a payment. He worked with the tenacity of a starving animal. Even Mangchi, who’d introduced him to the mining job, had been left speechless.
When Nabin first sought out Kim Mansik with nothing but a business card, the man had been shocked by how young he looked. At first, he thought Nabin just had a baby face. But upon closer inspection, the boy still had a soft fuzz of baby hair on his cheeks—clearly school-aged, a kid who should’ve been in a uniform.
“Don’t you value your life, kid?! Go home!” he’d barked, horrified.
But eventually, Kim Mansik had no choice but to teach him the job.
As someone who’d been through his own share of hardship, Kim Mansik thought he was tough—until he heard Nabin’s story. It nearly brought him to tears.
In the end, he took Nabin with him from dungeon to dungeon. Every bit of knowledge he had was learned through experience—never anything he shared lightly—but he gave it all to Nabin without hesitation.
Having missed his chance to marry and living alone, Kim Mansik began to see the boy as a son. It broke his heart to see a child born under such a cruel fate—unable to attend school, forced to labor day and night just to hand money over to loan sharks.
Kim Mansik knew Black Finance all too well. There’d been a time when he’d been so desperate that he almost borrowed money from them himself—only to be dragged back by a friend at the last moment.
They were some of the most vicious loan sharks around. Despite the usurious interest rates, beatings, and even murders they committed, few of them were ever arrested.
Though everyone knew there was someone higher up giving the orders, the police only ever arrested fresh recruits—window dressing to make it look like they were doing something.
Eventually, he learned the truth: Black Finance was run by the Black Dragon Gang, the most dominant force in Korea’s underworld.
And the man who managed it was Kim Minsu, the right-hand man of the gang’s boss. Even the police turned a blind eye to Black Finance’s crimes under his name.
Which meant—even if Kim Mansik wanted to free Nabin from the shackles of debt, it was next to impossible.
In truth, his own situation wasn’t much different. He, too, was living as a miner to pay off loan shark debts. The only difference was that his creditors were slightly less evil than Black Finance.
He lived a life that could end tomorrow without regret. His body was already worn with age, and there was no family left to mourn him. That’s why Kim Mansik had no hesitation working as a miner, even knowing how it wore down his health.
But Nabin was different. The boy had just turned twenty. When they first met, he’d been barely fifteen. Even though he was now legally an adult, not much had changed from when Kim Mansik had first laid eyes on him.
Every time they met, Kim Mansik tried to feed him something, but Nabin had suffered so much from such a young age that his body remained noticeably smaller than others his age. It wasn’t that he was short—his frame simply couldn’t retain weight.
Mentally and physically exhausted, any food he managed to eat was burned away quickly.
From the two rice balls he’d brought, Kim Mansik handed Nabin the larger one. It was just plain rice mixed with sesame oil and a bit of salt, yet Nabin treated it like the most precious delicacy in the world, nibbling at it bit by bit.
Watching him made Kim Mansik’s chest tighten. He turned his body away and discreetly wiped the corner of his eye.
“Cough, cough.”
“Drink some water and eat slowly. We won’t be mining mana stones for the next hour anyway.”
“Cough… Okay, sir.”
Nabin took the water bottle Kim Mansik offered and thumped his dry chest as he drank.
The dungeon air was suffocating, nearly unbearable for a regular person. The thick, misty fog inside made every breath feel like inhaling sharp needles.
Miners who had the means always wore artifact-grade gas masks. But for someone like Nabin, who could barely afford a proper meal a day, such luxury was out of reach.
All he could do was wrap a thick piece of cloth around his nose and mouth. Harmful particles clung to his fragile body, worsening his health. Once he started coughing, it wouldn’t stop until the taste of blood tinged the inside of his mouth.
With water running down the back of his throat, Nabin pressed his hand over his mouth, chewing slowly to keep the rice ball from coming back up.
If not for the food Kim Mansik brought, he would’ve often gone hungry.
Even while he made sure his sick mother at home always had meals, Nabin chose to skip his own so he could save even a few extra coins.
He spent entire days mining mana stones in abandoned dungeons, and still it was barely enough to cover the interest.
Each year, Kim Minsu’s obsession with him only grew worse, so Nabin saved money with ferocious determination, even if it meant starving—just in case the worst happened.
“You look even skinnier. Want mine too?”
“N-no, this is plenty. Really.”
Nabin frantically waved his hands, refusing the second rice ball Kim Mansik offered.
The man’s own circumstances weren’t much better than Nabin’s. Yet from the day they first met, he had looked after Nabin like his own son.
If he hadn’t met this man, Nabin might have already had his wings torn off by Kim Minsu.
Life was brutal, day after day, but the only reason he was able to endure it at all… was because of him.
